


Love is for Children, but We Live in a Fairytale Anyway

by BlackRook



Series: Fairytale [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Gen, Reunions, Spies & Secret Agents, USSR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 02:52:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackRook/pseuds/BlackRook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For more than an hour Natasha'd been staring at one particular face, tracing familiar features with her fingers. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Steve’s Bucky. In another time and place also known as Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is for Children, but We Live in a Fairytale Anyway

**Author's Note:**

> Partly inspired by the works of my friend chipsaestrella and by wonderful 'interesting landings' series by irnan.
> 
> Special thanks to Momentary Grace for the beta-reading!

 

_В том гробу твоя невеста.  
А.С. Пушкин_

_In that crystal coffin your fiancé lies.  
A.S. Pushkin_

It was ironic, really, or maybe even funny. These files – personal files on the Howling Commandos – had been in SHIELD since the War, Natasha had had the necessary clearance for at least six years, and yet only now was she seeing them for the first time.

 To be fair, though, as far as personal files were concerned, those weren’t a popular read among SHIELD members. The dossier on Rogers himself – yes, the files on every scientist, every lab assistant involved with Project Rebirth or with Dr. Erskine on both sides – double yes. (SHIELD kept an eye on attempts to recreate the serum, and most of them could be traced back to Erskine one way or another.) But the soldiers, even the ones who’d fought at the Captain’s side?  Not much interest, to anyone. The only name in the archive’s check out log in the last decades was Coulson’s, and they all new why. Coulson was also the one who made copies for Rogers, once the man was found, long before he was… present enough to ask for them.

 For Natasha herself, being close with Coulson meant she’d heard a lot about Steve Rogers before reading anything; and, as an agent involved with the Avengers Initiative, she had read his main file when he’d been found.  But nothing more – Rogers’s first contact person had been Fury, Coulson would be the second, once he’d worked up his nerve, no need for her to do a deeper study. Besides, Rogers seemed a clear person, buttons and priorities and weaknesses obvious. And then they had been thrown into a fight together, and, after the dust’d settled, Natasha had found herself a part of the Initiative, much to her own surprise.

 She had a team now, a team she trusted, to a point, and – what was undoubtedly worse – a team she cared about. About Stark, even though half of the time she wanted to kill him, about Bruce, who was terrifying and comforting at the same time, about Rogers…

 Clint had told her once that it felt strangely personal with Steve, like Coulson had left them a kid or a puppy to look after. Natasha agreed with the notion, and the fact that they all followed this kid or puppy into battle without a doubt spoke volumes about their lives. She cared about Steve, and Steve was hurting; so she wanted to help. For starters – to learn about people Steve missed so fiercely, the famous Agent Carter certainly wasn’t the only one. So now Natasha was looking at Steve’s first team.

 Actually, for more than an hour she’d been staring at one particular face, tracing familiar features with her fingers. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Steve’s Bucky. In another time and place also known as №307, Seventh Warrior, Wintersoldat. The Winter Soldier.

 

~~~

 Natasha’s memories were a picture combined from several puzzles, not one of them with a complete set of pieces. There were holes, and there were pieces which stuck out, but there were other moments as certain as crystal.

 ~N~

 It’s 1953, she is ten and she is already a spy and a killer. She lives in the Red Room Training Center with a couple of dozen other kids; they attend two schools, one on, one off the grounds. The latter is relatively normal – after all, if you are bringing up spies, you’d better show them what normal looks like.

 She is called Natasha during those normal, boring lessons, Natashka during recesses, though even older boys know better than to tease her in rhyme. In the other, real, interesting school they all have other names, codenames; they are all fairy-tale themed because someone in the Center thought it’d be funny. Her own is Аленький Цветочек, and she hates it with a passion. She is promised a new one, though, as soon as she graduates, and she hopes it’ll be soon – she is the best, after all.

 She is the best, and that is why she accompanies the Director of the Center to Headquarters; and soon after they arrive, all the hell breaks loose. Later, Natasha will connect the dots and realize that this scuffle is a part of a bigger struggle for power within KGB, brought on by the death of Joseph Stalin. Now, though, she only knows that the Colonel is on one side, the General on the other and the Director will sit this out and choose his side once the winner will be obvious. So she is hiding in the tunnels in HQ, and there she meets the main hero of the Red Room fairy-tale. Number 307, unofficially known as the Seventh Warrior – because no one was insane enough to call him Dead Princess or Sleeping Beauty, even when he indeed was sleeping in his crystal coffin, pardon, cryochamber. He is the legend, the best the Red Room has ever created (or stolen and re-oriented, as some rumors say) and someone must have thought it would be a good idea to wake him up during the strife.

 He is tall, strikingly handsome despite the metal arm; scary is hell and absolutely lethal. And some part of Natasha is still a girl on the verge of adolescence, so of course after five minutes spent with him she has a crush. She tries to help him, and manages not to screw things up too much – at least, he doesn’t kill or club her or otherwise stop her from following. They run through a lab at some moment; one of the scientists, scared out of his mind and to his native language, calls 307 Wintersoldat. He grins and whispers “Like this one better.” Natasha smiles, because she, too, likes Wintersoldat better than #307 or Seventh Warrior. In Russian, the Winter Soldier doesn’t sound like a good name, but in German it suits him, and she starts calling him this, at least in her head.

 For some reason, Wintersoldat decides to side with the Colonel, and brings him the victory in two days.

 Once the winners gather in one room, he gestures at Natasha and says: “Keep an eye on that one, Director. She has potential.”

 Natasha beams and walks on cloud nine after that, but she is the only one, everyone else is dead serious despite the victory. Even Wintersoldat hides his feral grin, though it’s still kind of obvious to her. It’s also obvious he is downplaying his part in the strife, stating the Colonel’s victory was determined from the start. It wasn’t (Natasha trusts the Director’s opinion on it), but everyone pretends that it was. It’s confusing, and Natasha makes a mental note to ask Wintersoldat what that’s about, if she gets a chance. She knows better that to ask the Director.

 And then it’s like her birthday and New Year came at once – she gets to spend a week with Wintersoldat, while the dust settles and he catches up on the weaponry that had appeared in the world during the last months he’s slept through. Her own weapons training so far has mostly involved easily hidden close range weapons, so she is fascinated by all those rifles and shotguns; but of course Wintersoldat himself is much more fascinating. The speed with which he tames the weapons is obviously another reason he is the best.

 On the third day, when they are alone in the range and she is positive nobody is listening, she works up her nerve to finally ask him why he downplayed his part in the Colonel’s victory.

 “He owes you now, why you don’t want to use his gratitude?”

 He grins at her. “Well, it would be a very bad idea, Reddie.” From anyone else, the nickname would be extremely annoying.

 “Why?”

 “If you want to survive here, girl, remember one thing. The handlers and bosses should know you are good at your job and loyal. Your good performance lets them to show off to their own bosses, and it’s good. But never let a handler feel he personally owes to you, especially after a crisis like that.”

 He gets silent, and she dares to ask again. “Why?”

 “Because,” he takes another rifle and aims. “The lot of them usually expresses their gratitude with a bullet in the back of the head.”

 In the years to come, Natasha will remember this lesson well. She’ll watch some of her peers  learn it at the cost of their lives, even use the knowledge against a rival once or twice. And it’ll be the first line in her personal ledger, because she doesn’t want to be like them.

 ~N~

 It’s early 60's, and she is a full-fledged operative – the youngest in the Red Room's history. The name on her official ID says Natalia Alianovna Romanova, her codename is Black Widow. That one, she actually likes.

 She’s lost her romanticism and naiveté - special Red Room trainee brand of naiveté – and the Director’s praise isn’t the most desirable thing anymore.  But she still likes the job, the challenge, and wants to be the best. This is why she is exited when she’s assigned as Wintersoldat’s partner on a large mission with multiple targets. A mission like that would do wonders for her place in Red Room official and unofficial lists, not to mention all the experience and an opportunity to learn from the very best. That’s it, and her long-forgotten childhood crush doesn’t have anything to do with the said excitement, right? 

 Fortunately, he doesn’t show if he remembers or recognizes her – saves her the embarrassment – but they sort of click. He even doesn’t treat her as a clueless rookie, though sometimes she does feel like one, because he is so much better than anyone she’s ever worked with or against.

 The mission involves spending about a week in a motel in South America, posing as a couple, and they have sex as part of the cover. It’s as close to ‘just for fun’ as she’s ever had. Of course, she still catalogs his preferences, in case she’d ever need to manipulate him (she knows better than to even try now). But it’s probably the first time she truly enjoys the process, though it doesn’t top ice-cream on her list of personal pleasures.

 ~N~

 It’s ’64 and Nikita Khrushchev is forced to retire, though the Red Room isn’t involved in the political shuffle this time, they have problems of their own. One of their best agents has defected to the enemy, and they wake Wintersoldat up to send him after the traitor. Natasha is part of the operation, too – evacuating (or canceling) potentially compromised assets, and also providing Wintersoldat with current info on all players who might be involved. In between, they have sex, more or less ‘just for fun’ this time.

 In the end, there has been some damage, but the traitor is killed and the message sent. No operative of the Red Room in the near future will even think about defecting, and any Agency out there will think twice about stealing from them.

 As a side effect, the world knows the name Winter Soldier now.

  ~N~

 For more then a decade, it goes like this. They wake him about once a year, for specific mission or in the periods of ‘high international tension’; she briefs him on their latest knowledge of CIA, MI6, Mossad and dozen other Agencies, and - unofficially – on internal dynamics in the Red Room itself. Sometimes they work together, sometimes they don’t. When they do, she sees – every time, somewhat to her frustration and disappointment – that he is still better despite sleeping in the ice while she’s been gaining experience.

 And they always find time to have sex, for no other reason that they both want it. She might have called it making love, but Black Widow doesn’t have words like that in her personal vocabulary. In rare moments of honesty, she admits to herself – with him, it’s something completely different than with any other lover she’s taken to her bed.

 ~N~

 It’s 1981. Leonid Brezhnev is slowly dying in office, already becoming a folklore character, and their little affair is discovered. And the Red Room doesn’t like unauthorized fraternization. 

 She survives her punishment with her body and mind not much worse for the wear, but when she sees him next time, the only thing he remembers about her is their first mission back in the 60ties. And something vital is missing in his eyes; she doesn’t know what to call it.

 In a year, she has enough reasons to hate him. She doesn’t, but she knows – when she’ll walk away from the Red Room (and she most definitely will), and they will send him after her, she should be able to take him down. She’ll need time to become good enough – but time is one thing she knows she has. She is almost 40 now, but doesn’t look a day older than 25, and her body is as perfect a tool as ever. Something useful has come out of these experiments back in the 60's, after all.

 ~N~

 It’s 1988. Mikhail Gorbachev has finally consolidated all power in his hands, and Natasha is having an in-house affair again. This time it’s authorized and even encouraged – Maksim Dorohov is the newest prodigy in analytical department, and the General likes to keep an eye on all his assets. Natasha doesn’t mind – Maks is a handsome and smart kid, and Natasha enjoys the company of smart people, especially when she doesn’t have to play dumb herself.

 One day, she waits for him in his apartment, and he comes, blindly drunk. She listens to his – rather eschatological – ramblings till he fells asleep; in the morning she reassures him that he said nothing important, and makes him forget all his worries. She doesn’t report anything, because what’s the point, but knows – it’s time to go.

 She fakes her own death, and they either buy it, or are busy elsewhere, because no one comes after her. No one worth mentioning, anyway. She still lies low, though. With her various stashes across the globe she could afford doing nothing for at least a decade, but letting skills like hers go rusty is suicidal, so she still takes jobs, in  her field though far beneath her level, but for now that’ll do.

 On a date within a month of Maks’s drunken predictions the USSR crumbles – spectacularly – and she raises a toast. She hopes the General will be buried under the debris, and she hopes Maks will survive and find someone worthy to sell his brain to. She could check – as she could check whoever will keep the cryochamber – but she won’t, at least for a while. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with the motherland just yet; she is free and the world is large.

 ~N~

 It’s the 90's, and she is a free agent. One of the top-five in the world, and on the hit list of every intelligence agency worth its salt. She takes the jobs, prefers challenging ones, and goes through world without a care. And then the absence of the Red Room drugs finally shows. Her body is as perfect as always, but wide cracks start appearing in her mind. She is smart enough to know chemicals aren’t the solution, so she goes to look for help in other avenues.

 She finds some Catholic monks, and then talks with some Buddhists, and then learns to re-assemble herself as a clockwork. Her mind is clearer than it has been for a long time, but she is afraid she might have found something like remorse in the process, too. She is not sure she likes it.

 She is tired, and possibly ready to clock out and maybe that is why the next hunter gets the drop on her. She gets an arrow in her shoulder instead of expected bullet through her heart, though, and an offer of a chance with it.

 The shooter – the infamous Hawkeye from the even more infamous SHIELD – doesn’t look like an American, more like Ivan the Fool or some such. With the arrow thing, it makes her the Frog, right? Was she Vasilisa the Wise or the Beautiful? She is clearly delusional (has the arrow been poisoned?) and mixes up her fairytales, but she takes it. The chance, that is.

 ~N~

 It’s the first decade of 21st century, and she is a SHIELD agent. She still lies and steals and kills, but she has a cause again, a cause that’s easy to believe in.

 Despite their fairytale first meeting (and the opinion of at least half of the SHIELD) she and Clint aren’t a couple. He is her partner, a partner she trusts more than she’s ever trusted anyone. It’s a scary feeling.

 She trusts Clint and she gets him, but she is not sure what to make of Coulson and Fury yet. At least they are a smart handler and a smart boss; smart in her book means they don’t waste assets and she hasn’t yet seen either of them making a really bad call. Of course, nobody is safe from mistakes, but there are mistakes, and then there are cases of terminal stupidity. She’s already had her share of the latter.

 Speaking of terminal stupidity, SHIELD doesn’t end up with Fury. There is World Security Council, and they really like interfering. Clint told her a number of stories about various WSC-related messes; though during this particular mess he is not here, away on a mission. And, absolutely against her better judgment, Natasha gets involved and backs Fury up. Here instincts scream at her (in Wintersoldat’s voice) that it’ll end up badly, but afterward Fury just growls at her in his usual manner:

 “Thank you, Romanoff. I owe you one”. He sounds like he means it, and then Coulson takes her out for ice-cream.

 She is bewildered, and when Clint returns she sits him down and asks:

 “So, in what currency does Fury usually pay his debts?”

 Clint shrugs. “Second chances and spared lives, mostly, not necessarily in that order. Or you can cash it in ‘get out of paperwork’ cards.”

 She smiles, and wonders if Clint had to collect a debt like that when he brought her in. It’ll be interesting to know, but she will never ask. As for herself… there is only one life out there that she cares enough to ask for, if it comes to that. And maybe…

 Before, she’d never even thought about looking for him. On her own, she might be good enough to kill Winter Soldier, but to bring him in alive against his will?  Hold him – alive – long enough to help him reassemble his own mind? No way. But with SHIELD resources, even with just Clint at her back… it’s worth a shot.

 Maksim, her analytic friend, has survived the crumble of the USSR and ended up in Israel; Natasha pays him a visit and gets enough information to start her search. She checks leads in between missions, and some of them look promising, but she gets called back to the US to babysit Stark and then to watch Banner, while Clint and Phil deal with aliens in New Mexico. As a result, R&D has a big new toy, and SHIELD is refocusing on extra-terrestrial threats. For that they have to clean up the house first, as much as possible, and for Natasha it means a string of back to back missions with no time for personal affairs, save for teasing Coulson about ‘his favorite action figure’ and phone gossiping with Clint.

 And then Coulson’s call interrupts her mission in Kazazhstan, and the week from hell follows, and then months of clean-up, which is so much more difficult without Phil. But the world is still spinning, and the Avengers Initiative is a real thing now, with Natasha a part of it… which has brought her into here and now, staring at familiar – beloved – face with an American name under it. James Buchanan Barnes.

 

~~~

 James. She had a name to call him now, his real name. The name for that part of him which wasn’t a creation of the Red Room or HYDRA, which was just him. The part that kept drawing her to him long after childhood crush and rookie admiration had wore off. The name for the only man she’d ever… loved?

 Natasha shook her head. “Such language, Agent Romanoff. Less than a year in the Avengers, and look at you.”

 But… They were already living in a fairytale (better than in comics, right?)  maybe it was time to stop pretending she doesn’t care. Time to find her prince in crystal coffin. Even if she would have to ask the Sun, the Moon and the Wind for directions.

 Besides, it wasn’t just about her and her debts anymore, it was also about Steve and his best friend, and about James and his past, which, as she now knew, was worth remembering. And she also knew that being friends with Steve Rogers gave a person a steel rod that wasn’t easy to destroy, even for the Red Room. They would find James Barnes inside Winter Soldier, they just need to find the Winter Soldier first. Telling Steve now wouldn’t be wise, though – she’d have to find at least one solid lead first.

 Natasha took a deep breath, closed the folder and stood up, taking her phone. It was too early to tell Steve, but she didn’t have to go on her quest alone.

 Clint answered on the third ring, probably was still in the range.

 “Yeah?”

 “Time for lunch. Meet me at Angelo’s in half in hour.”

 “Got it.”

 

~~~

 Two heart-wrenching conversations, a dozen yelling matches, three missions in the Middle East and one full-blown shoot-out in Brooklyn later, Natasha was sitting in SHIELD medical looking at James, lying in a narrow bed. He was hooked up to a load of medical equipment, but breathing on his own, and doctors said he could wake up anytime.

 He wasn’t restrained, because at this point it would do more harm than good, but the room was secure enough to hold a determined Steve, and either Steve himself or she were there all the time. Most often it was both of them, so it was safe. They had taken his arm off, though; it was damaged in the last fight, and there was always a risk of James’s last handlers using it as some kind of failsafe. There was a new one waiting for him, a state of the art limb from SI medical division; and Stark himself was already tinkering on a better model.

 “We’re talking about the Avengers, Tash,” he’d said while dragging her away for lunch two days ago.  “Nothing with a serial number on it is good enough, even if it’s Stark Industries serial number.”

 It was more than premature, they couldn’t even say yet who would wake up in this bed, there were no guarantees Bucky Barnes would even recognize either her or Steve, let alone fight by their side again – but Tony Stark was showing his support the only way he knew how, and Natasha appreciated it. And so did Steve, no matter how unshakeable his own faith was.

 James’s breathing didn’t change, but something made Natasha abandon her thoughts and focus on his face. Her instincts didn’t fail – a moment later he opened his eyes and looked at her. She held her breath. 

 “Où?” he whispered. French, it used to be the Red Room protocol for ‘waking up in unknown place, presumably western country’, and Natasha took it as a good sign, because ‘completely shattered mind’ was among the  possible outcomes.

 She answered in English, in deliberately blank voice. “SHIELD Headquarters. New York. It’s May of 2014.”

 He looked around, taking in bland walls and medical equipment and the fact that no doors could be seen from his bed but cameras were obvious, and asked, also in English. “Why…” pause, swallow. “Alive?”

 There were a dozen answers to that, but she settled on the truth.

 “Because it’s time for you to come home, James.”

 Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to say, psychologically, but it was the truth. And she’d been wishing to call him by his name in the face ever since she’d learned it.

 He looked at her again, and there was something in his eyes – recognition? acceptance?

 “Do you…” he swallowed and switched to Russian. “Ты знаешь, где это?” _Do you know where it is?_

“Да.” _Yes._ “I know.”

 He closed his eyes after that, and soon was asleep again.

 Natasha heard an abrupt exhale, and then Steve came from behind the machines. He must have been there a while, and Natasha could only imagine what it cost him, not to rush forward at the first sound of Bucky’s voice. He came close and laid a hand on her shoulder.

 “We’ll get him back, Nat.”

 “Yes. We will.”

**Author's Note:**

> **On names and fairytales**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Natalia is a full version of Russian name, Natasha is the most common neutral diminutive, girls are usually called that way.
> 
> A native Russian speaker would never come up with a name ‘Winter Soldier’ (Зимний солдат/Zimniy Soldat) or use it regularly – it just sounds wrong, so I gave the codename German origins.
> 
> Natasha’s first codename (Аленький Цветочек, sounds like Alenkiy Tsvetochek, means Litlle Red Flower) is a title of a Russian folk tale in an authorized retelling of S.T. Aksakov. It’s a version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, where main heroine asks her father to bring her the Red Flower from his travels, he finds one in the garden of the Beast and takes it. You can imagine the rest.
> 
> During her first meeting with Barton, Natasha remembers Russian folk tale ‘Princess the Frog’ (Царевна-лягушка). In it, the Tsar (king) tells his sons to marry; each of them shoots an arrow to the sky in search of a wife. The arrows of the older ones land in appropriate places, the youngest one, Ivan the Tsarevich, finds his arrow in a swamp, with a talking frog. He nevertheless marries it, and the Frog turns out to be an enchanted princess, Vasilisa the Wise.
> 
> The epigraph and all the references about Dead Princess, Seven Warriors, crystal coffin and Sun, Moon and Wind quote ‘The Tale of Dead Princess and Seven Warriors’ («Сказка о мертвой царевне и семи богатырях») by Alexander Pushkin. It’s an authorized poetic version of Snow White and a classic – every other Russian would remember at least a line or two.


End file.
